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Originally Posted by K-Wise
Knaw it's cool I prolly didn't make myself clear enough. I said there is NOTHING wrong with wanting to get paid...no one wants to live poor for the rest of their lives thats for sure but don't let it govern your content is what I'm saying. Cats that get rich and then write about how rich they are is redundant..We already know that. Write something that makes me think. When an emcee lets other people tell him what to write about or writes songs that he thinks are gonna make him a lot of money he is a sell out. Hip-hop is nothing more than a bank for him. The people who REALLY love hip-hop, and by this I mean all aspects of it, want to write something that will leave it's mark on hip-hop. Lyrics that YEARS later people will still go back and say "Yeah those were REALLY good. I felt those lyrics." Not the sell outs though. They're in there to cash in...drop as many bullshit albums as they can until they have enough money to live their life off of then open their own label and make money off of other people. They don't care if their music makes a difference to anyone they only care that people buy it. Thats not real...that is fake.
See you misunderstood my meaning of the word "real" for a minute there. You are no more real than the people of Def Poetry because you are unsigned because the poets at Def Poetry are real regardless. You can tell it in their writing. They're doing poetry because they love it and it just so happens that someone decided to pay them for that. Not the other way around....
See the reason why people romantisize 70's, early 80's, and even early 90's hip-hop because it was purer back then. Hip-hop had not blown up like it is now...It didn't have the greedy bastards behind all the pop acts endorsing it. They didn't think there was any money in it..they thought it was a phad. Then all of a sudden they realize it is big so now they wanna cash in on it. They corperatized it and turned into a money making tool rather than musical expression. They signed young acts who were looking to better their lives and told them what to write about. This guy raps like this and it's gotten him a lot of money..we're gonna make a song like that..get his producer on the phone..etc. Thats not real. He should rap how he wants to rap. Thats the way it SHOULD be. It's not that way anymore.
Now you have people getting in it solely for that purpose alone...we have emcees exactly like those same greedy bastards that took control of it in the first place. These same greed bastard go to every radio station in the area, and MTV and whoever else they can reach and PAY them to play their artist and to give him a certain ammount of rotation. This is why you have millions of music videos out there but for some reason it seems like you're always seeing the same handful of artists and video's over and over and over again. It's not necessarily the artists themselves that have sold out all the time though don't get me wrong. Eminem is one of the artists you see over and over but he writes what he wants to write about. The only selling out he's done is following a formula that works for him. Thats all. But hopefully I cleared things up as to what the difference between a real and fake emcee is.
Asta!!
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i see what you meant, i was really just trying to spark further debate (which we've done). i feel the same way you do about "real" and "fake" artists... it just seems to me that a lot of people (not either of us) equate real with underground and lack of commercial sucess and fake with anyone/anything that has commercial success.
by extension, these same people feel that only "real" hip-hop heads listen to underground artists or little known artists, and that people who are "fake" only listen to what mtv and major radio stations play.
i think we both agree that one can enjoy hip-hop and listen to everything- that with rich lyrical content, that without, bling bling, gangster, conscious, etc. etc.
whether inside of hip hop, or out, people have always been intrigued by women and fame & fortune. it was true 200 years ago, and it's true now. as far as hip hop goes, people have always been rapping about
women:
nwa, a bitch iz a bitch, 1987
ll cool j, big ole butt, 1989
epmd, gold digger, 1991
digital underground, humpty dance, 1990
pete rock and cl smooth, skinz, 1992
outkast, jazzy belle, 1996
jay-z, girls, girls, girls, 2001
money:
eric b. and rakim, paid in full, 1987
eazy e, nobody move, 1988
bg, bling bling, 1999
and cars:
ll cool j, boomin' system, 1990
dr. dre, let me ride, 1992
g unit, stunt 101, 2004
not to mention fashion, drugs, violence, etc. etc.
now, each song i've listed can obviously be scrutinized, but i tried to list a variety of artists, some universally accepted as real, some fake, and others in between. for instance, bg isn't regarded as a "real" artist (though i do agree with your sentiment earlier about cash money millionaires as a whole), but he's left a lasting mark on hip hop, and really on american pop culture (since "bling bling" is now in the oxford dictionary and well known term).
i think the point i'm trying to make, lol, is that rappers have always been talking/rhyming/rapping about the same things. people have, are, and will continue to rap about making ends meet/stacking bread/making paper; chasing chicks/banging broads/talkin to girls; driving/flossing/stunting...
sometimes i feel like the argument about current rap/hip-hop versus old school/real hip-hop/rap is similar to people's laments about current pop music versus older pop music, or current r&b versus older r&b... the songs/messages aren't changing, it's the artists brining the songs that are.